Sunny Boy was proud to be allowed to handle Daddy’s big jack knife, and he was glad Daddy hadn’t told him not to cut himself. Daddy, somehow, always trusted Sunny not to be heedless.
“Mother’ll like it, won’t she?” he called to Daddy, who was digging up a pretty, creeping green vine that grew in the grass near him. “Won’t she be s’prised, Daddy?”
They worked busily, and soon Sunny had a neat little pile of green moss ready to take home to Mother. After that he waded about in the brook, splashing the water with his bare feet.
“There—you’ve been in long enough,” called Mr. Horton presently. “The water is too cold to play in it long. Come, Son, and put on your shoes and stockings.”
Sunny Boy dabbled his feet in a little hole made by a stone he had pushed away.
“Sunny Boy!” called Mr. Horton once again.
Still Sunny Boy continued to play in the water. To tell the truth every one had been so anxious to make him happy at Brookside that he was the least little bit in the world spoiled. The more you have your own way, you know, the harder it is to do other people’s way, and if you can do as you please day after day, by and by you want to do as you please all the time. Sunny Boy felt like that now.
“Sunny!” said Daddy a third time, very quietly.
Sunny Boy looked at him—and came marching out of the water. He was not very pleasant while Daddy helped him dry his feet and get into the despised shoes and stockings, but, when they were ready to start for home and Daddy tilted up his chin to look at him squarely, Sunny Boy’s own smile came out.
“All right!” announced Daddy cheerfully. “Let’s go home a different way and perhaps we’ll find wild strawberries.”